Phanta Bear NFTs earn 60 million RMB | “Unspeakable Secrets” Between Jay Chou and Fans

【TL; DR】

1. On January 1, Ezek, a blockchain entertainment platform, and PHANTACi, a trendy brand owned by Jay Chou, launched the Phanta Bear NFT series.
2. The series of works were sold out in 40 minutes, creating a revenue of up to 62 million RMB.
3. In the future, Phanta Bear NFTs will also serve as the membership card of Ezek club. Fans can use it as tickets to participate in possible future metaverse concerts, enter Ezek's virtual real estate and enjoy a series of other rights and interests.
4. The release of music works by NFT and the protection of creators' revenue through smart contracts may bring a new revolution to the music industry.

Chinese music superstar Jay Chou's "entry" into the metaverse can be said to be the first major event in the NFT space in 2022. On January 1, Ezek, a blockchain entertainment platform, cooperated with PHANTACi, a trendy brand owned by Jay Chou to launch a series of Phanta Bear NFT works, with a limited number of 10,000 and a selling price of 0.26ETH per work. This is also the first NFT project directly endorsed by Jay Chou. As soon as the news came out, it aroused heated discussion on the Internet and boarded the hot search list of Baidu and Sina Weibo.


Thanks to Jay Chou's great influence, the series of works were sold out in 40 minutes, creating a revenue of up to 62 million RMB. On the same day, the total amount of gas fee burned by the project was close to 300ETH, which was enough to show the high purchase enthusiasm of fans. According to the trading records, another well-known musician, JJ Lin, also bought a Phanta Bear head. Meanwhile, in the Open Sea NFT ranking, Phanta Bear NFT ranked the highest and reached the third place, second only to Bored Ape Yacht Club（BAYC） and CryptoPunks. Even at present, the project still ranks 10th in Open Sea, and the floor price is 0.78ETH, which is three times higher than the issue price.


Some fans praised the Phanta Bear series of NFT as the BAYC of the Chinese world. These two projects also have similar social attributes. In the future, Phanta Bear NFT will also serve as the membership card of Ezek club. Fans can use it as tickets to participate in possible future metaverse concerts, enter Ezek's virtual real estate and enjoy a series of other rights and interests.

Some fans also believe that the release of Phanta Bear NFT has nothing to do with Jay Chou, and the proceeds from the sale of Phanta Bear are not obtained by Jay Chou. Therefore, they criticized Ezek's behavior of using Jay Chou's heat to build momentum.

PHANTICi, Ezek, Jay Chou and Metaverse

The trendy brand PHANTICi was founded in 2006 and jointly created by Jay Chou and his friend Ric. It aims to provide people who love pop culture with more avant-garde choices and lifestyles. Jay Chou provides many ideas and ideas for the brand, and Ric is responsible for transforming these ideas into reality. In the more than ten years since its establishment, PHANTICi has carried out joint cooperation with many brands such as Nike, New Balance and CASIO. For the brand, the little bear with a star in each eye - Phanta Bear - is one of the representative images of the brand and one of the core IP of the brand.

Ezek is a metaverse entertainment platform under S.E.L(Starvision Entertainment Ltd.). S. E.l was founded by Jay Chou's good friend Liu Jianhong. The two have cooperated in many films such as Head Text D, Slam Dunk, Rooftop Love and so on. After the launch of the project, Ezek also gave Jay Chou and his wife Kunling Phanta Bear avatar as a new year gift. Due to the hot development of the project, Jay Chou's personal company "Jawell Music" issued a statement on January 3, saying that Jay Chou himself only received thePhanta Bear NFT avatar as a gift, which has nothing to do with the business behavior. Jay Chou has neither participated in the planning and operation of the project nor earned any revenue from it. To this end, some fans accused Liu Jianhong of over consuming Jay Chou's IP. However, shortly after Jawell's statement, Jay Chou and his wife replaced their Instagram avatar with their Phanta Bears to express their support for their friends.


For Jay Chou, this is not the first time he has set foot in the field of NFT. Previously, in October, Jay Chou and Fang Wenshan cooperated with Soka Art to launch the limited edition PunkCat Sting (blue and white porcelain) doll jointly signed by Fang Wenshan and Jay Chou, with NFT anti-counterfeiting certification. In addition, as early as 2013, Jay Chou also tried to add virtual reality elements to the concert. At the concert, he sang with the late singer Teresa Teng, who appeared out of thin air, which also became the focus of media coverage at that time.

In addition to Jay Chou, musicians such as Yu wenle, Xu Jinglei and JJ Lin are also NFT players. Among them, JJ Lin also purchased NFT land in Decentraland. For details, see: The Metaverse Fuels the Booming Digital Property Market: What did JJ Lin buy for $120,000?

In addition, Ryuichi Sakamoto, the godfather of Japanese music, recently mint 595 notes in the famous song "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" into NFT, with a unified price of 10,000 yen. Sakamoto's team will benefit from NFT circulation, and each resale will return 20% of the trading amount. This also makes us see the possibility of NFT + music. In this era when everything can be NFT, publishing music works through NFT and ensuring the revenue of creators through smart contracts may bring a new revolution to the music industry.

Conclusion

On November 24, Collins Dictionary named "NFT" as the word of the year in 2021, and "NFT" defeated a series of candidates such as “Crypto" and "Double-vaxxed". In 2021, the usage rate of NFT increased by more than 11,000%, and appeared in various fields such as art, finance, social networking and so on.
In the future, maybe we will stay at home, work and socialize in the metaverse, listen to metaverse concerts and buy NFT albums. At that time, NFT and metaverse will become a part of people's daily life, and may even become our life itself.

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Author: Ashley. H, Gate.io Researcher
*This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment advice.
*Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all other cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.


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